Quiller Balalaika

One of the servers came round from behind the counter with a bucket and a mop, looking daggers at me while I apologized again and gave the order, getting the same for myself, the potato soup and kebabs, while Mitzi told the two workmen to shut up, it wasn't funny, I liked her anger, it had a cat's energy, where did she want to sit, I asked her when I had the two trays in my hands.

I followed her to one of the bare scrubbed tables. 'Mind if I join you?'

'Please yourself.' She was silent for a while, wanting me to know she didn't forgive easily, then looked up from her soup. 'Clumsy oaf,' she said, but with a quick bright smile.

'Dead right.'

She opened her money pouch and flattened a bank-note on the table. 'You didn't have to do that.'

'One should pay for one's mistakes. Dmitri,' I added, 'Dmitri Berinov.'

'Mitzi Piatilova.' She picked up the note and put it away.

I took my time, talked about the snow, the plane crash, the fist-fight they'd had in the Duma last night, it had been in the papers, talked about Zhirinovsky.

'He's a genius,' Mitzi said.

'He is?'

'Look,' she leaned across the table, her long eyes serious, intense, 'that man has it in him to bring Russia back as an imperial power in the world. I like that.'

'He'll need to shoot an awful lot of people.'

'So? You remember what he said? "I may have to shoot a hundred thousand people, but the other three hundred million will live in peace." '

'You're ready for dictatorship?'

'With a man like Zhirinovsky as our leader, yes. He could make real changes, sweeping and dramatic changes, clear out the trash we've been living with for all this time.'

'Yeltsin can't do that?'

'Yeltsin is in the pay of America. Russia can get back her place in the world without any help from the almighty dollar. Look at what Zhirinovsky did when he went over there – he spat in their eye. That's the message we need to get across: we're an independent, sovereign people, and give us ten years – maybe even five – with a man like that in charge, and we'll be powerful again in our own right, a force to be reckoned with.' Her hand slapping the table: 'Russia had a soul once, and that man can give it life again.'

'You're in politics?'

'Politics? No, I'm with the RAOC. But an ordinary citizen can -'

'You work over there, across the street?'

'Yes.'

'You don't look like a bureaucrat.'

'I'm not a bloody bureaucrat,' and her eyes flashed again. 'We're fighting crime.'

'Making much headway?'

'Are you serious?' With a short laugh.

When her glass was empty I went to the counter for some more vasti and came back with some pastries as well.

'So why can't you make any headway?'

Mitzi threw her head back. 'Against the mafiya? It's a farce! We catch them and put them into the courts and they buy themselves out or get a slap on the wrist for first-degree murder because either the judge is in league with their boss or he's terrified of making a conviction. It's not difficult in this town to get shot; it doesn't make any difference who you are.'

'Rather frustrating for you.'

'A job is a job.' With a shrug: 'Corruption's everywhere, you know that. We can fight crime but we can't fight corruption.'

'It must be dangerous.'

'Dangerous?'

'Fighting crime.'

She looked across at a man sitting three tables away, then back to me. 'For some of us, yes.'

'He's one of them?'

'Who?'

'The man you were looking at.'

'You don't miss much.' She checked me over with a quick glance. I was wearing the things I'd arrived in last night, black jeans and a padded bomber jacket, not the tra-la tailoring I'd be using later. 'He's one of our special investigators,' Mitzi said. 'They're crazy, you know that? Young bloods after promotion. They think they can take on professional hit men in the street and get away with it. They should leave the mafiya alone.'

'You tell your boss that?'

'Of course not. I got this job because there wasn't anything else. None of us working over there has any illusions. I was talking to a Japanese businessman only a couple of days ago, and he put the whole thing in perspective. He says the organizatsiya provides a service. You know what he did? He found a contact in one of the most powerful syndicates and made a deal with him. The night he opened his fancy sushi bar, people from three or four other gangs paid their usual visit and told him what percentage they were going to take. He'd known this would happen, and all he had to do was give them the name of his protector – the one he'd made the deal with – and they cleared out and never came back. There's an unwritten rule – you take over a protectee from a rival syndicate and you're dead, I mean within twenty-four hours.' She spread her hands. 'The Japanese told me that every entrepreneur needs protection, and since the police can't help him he pays his dues to a syndicate – and gets service.'

'The way the KGB used to run things. Freedom from trouble for sale.'

'Pretty much. The normal abuse of power – nothing's really changed.' With a bright laugh: 'Except that the mafiya's better organized and makes a lot more money.'

The man sitting three tables away was getting up, pushing his chair back and going across to the door. I watched him go out, a young fellow, walking like a cat as he hitched up his belt, a gun there somewhere, adding weight.

I turned back to Mitzi. 'So how long has he got?'

She looked round, and her eyes were deep suddenly. 'Until morning.'

'How do you know?'

In a moment she said, 'I think you're being too inquisitive.' I'd been expecting her to say it earlier, had the pitch ready.

'You want me to be frank?'

'Just as you please.' But she looked suddenly attentive.

'I've got to go over there today.'

'Over where?'

'To the RAOC office. I need some help.'

'What kind of help?'

I leaned across the table, moving the pastries. 'The thing is, I'm not sure which side you're on, Mitzi. I mean, you work for the RAOC but you say the mafiya provides a useful service.'

She watched me steadily. 'What do you think?'

'I agree.'

'You agree?' In a moment, 'I don't know who you are. I think it's time I did.'

I gave it a beat. 'I'll come to that. Do you know any of these people? In the mob? I mean, have you met them in the course of your work?'

She looked down, up again, turning the ring on her middle finger, the sapphire I'd noticed when we'd sat down at the table. It was small but flawless, not the kind of bauble a government worker could buy on the standard pay. But then she was attractive, would have a boyfriend, at least one. I thought it wasinteresting, the way her subconscious attention had gone to the ring when I'd asked her if she knew anyone in the mob. 'One or two,' she said.

'How well?'

'I'm waiting to know who you are.'

I finished my vasti, taking my time about it. 'I'll put it this way. The help I need is for a friend of mine. He's with the Scorpion.' They had fancy names, the chiefs of the syndicates, according to Legge's briefing, some of them taken from the world of the predators – the Jackal, the Tiger – some from the American motor industry: Stingray, Cutlass, Baretta.

In a moment Mitzi said, 'A friend? Or is it yourself?'

'No. I'm an independent entrepreneur.'

'A brave man.'

'I know what I'm risking.'

'I hope so. Anyway, if your friend is with the Scorpion, he shouldn't need any help from outside. They look after their own, like the Sicilians.'

'Normally, yes. But this is a rape case, and the Scorpion doesn't like that. He says it gives the syndicate a bad name.'

'We've got rape cases on our files, of course. Has your friend – you want to tell me his name?'